Very interesting article and a small chance to go down memory lane. I do miss much about hand drawing on a board. Some draftsmen were truly artists and could make drawings that had depth and looked like you could reach in and grab it off the paper. I miss the mental gymnastics required in all the trig involved in complicated designs. (I miss that because I was very good at it.) I do not miss the lettering, which in my case was often refered to as "chicken scratching" no matter how much I practiced. I do not miss the erasures of alterations or correcting a design. The callus is gone from my middle finger and the pencil groove is also gone, so I seriously doubt I could draw for eight hours without a sore hand.

I also miss standing while working and the walking back and forth on a large design on my 7' board. I have tried CAD while standing with very poor results. But what I miss most is being able to bury an error. When I erased a mistake, it was as if it never happend, but today that error might have been reproduced a dozen times in different views etc.

Do not get me wrong, I do not want to go back, but articles like this allow my mind to wander back to the good old days.

Thanks for the link, mrdon. I'll have to see if I can find that special on Netflix. I know there was a wartime codebreaking facility in Washington D.C., as well, codenamed CSAW (Communications Supplementary Activity - Washington (link below) that was responsible for tracking enemy subs in WWII.

Its quite interesting that technologies usually developed in early ages get advanced on and on and finally takes a new shape in future . CAD technology is no doubt example of this . CAD Software came into existance in early 1960 initially it was used in aerospace and automative industry only. Later on it became popular and is used in 2D and 3D printing currently there are different CAD softwaares in the market architecture cad software, home cad software and so on all these softwares helps to create 3D projects .

I agree. Its amazing how Ivan Sutherland was able to conceive such a tool to aid in designing products. I remember when I was introduced to Computer Aided Graphics in college, the CAD station seemed magical. I really dugged the light pen as a drawing tool as well as the control panel which had buttons with pre-programmed shapes like circles, lines, and squares. The CAD 2.0 slides in Cabe's article really show how far the technology has gone and the imagination of its developers.

The PBS special was titled "Mind of a Codebreaker". Alan Turing along with mathematicians, crossword puzzle hobbyists, and other super intellects were the brain power behind the Bletchely Park Code Breaker organization. Here's a link to the Mind of a Codebreaker PBS website.

I agree. It seems the Evolution of CAD 2.0 is based on how designers and modelers are interacting with their designs using Gesture control devices as shown in the slides. I found zSpace, I believe, to be intriguing because of the holographic approach to design thru HMI. Imagine, being totally immersed in the development of a product through 3D visualization. Talk it about having total ownership in your work! Very nice article, Cabe.

Yep, Chuck. But over the years they apparently found some other uses for computers. At one point they tried to used computers to predict the weather. That was back when a good portion of Americans still lived on farms, and the weather was critical -- as opposed to annoying for city folks. Good as computers may be, they were weak in predicting the weather.

Virtual Reality (VR) headsets are getting ready to explode onto the market and it appears all the heavy tech companies are trying to out-develop one another with better features than their competition. Fledgling start-up Vrvana has joined the fray.

A Tokyo company, Miraisens Inc., has unveiled a device that allows users to move virtual 3D objects around and "feel" them via a vibration sensor. The device has many applications within the gaming, medical, and 3D-printing industries.

While every company might have their own solution for PLM, Aras Innovator 10 intends to make PLM easier for all company sizes through its customization. The program is also not resource intensive, which allows it to be appropriated for any use. Some have even linked it to the Raspberry Pi.

solidThinking updated its Inspire program with a multitude of features to expedite the conception and prototype process. The latest version lets users blend design with engineering and manufacturing constraints to produce the cheapest, most efficient design before production.

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